Brussels, 17/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 16 September, the experts of the Directorate General for Agriculture of the European Commission presented the experts of the EU member states with the outlines of a new scheme of emergency measures to support the perishable fruit and vegetables sector, which has been hit hard by the Russian ban on imports of certain agricultural products from the EU. Citrus fruits will also be covered by the new instrument.
On 10 September, the European Commission announced the suspension of the emergency measures launched on 18 August in favour of the perishable fruit and vegetable sector (€125 million). This was due to disproportionate applications, from Poland in particular (87% of all applications for aid came from this country). It took barely 3 weeks for the upper limit (€82 million) laid down for apples and pears to be reached. And for products such as cucumbers, cauliflowers and broccoli, Polish aid applications were in some cases five times higher than the EU's total annual exports to Russia. The Commission is therefore putting the finishing touches to a new, more suitable instrument.
The experts of the Commission are setting in place a new regime which will, like its predecessor, offer EU funding for withdrawals (for free distribution or non-food usage), green harvesting and non-harvesting. The support rates will remain the same with, as before, a higher level of EU support for members of producer organisations.
However, in order to be more targeted than the previous scheme, the new programme includes an annex defining eligible volumes for each member state per product group on the basis of export volumes to Russia during this period (September to December) last year - deducting the amounts claimed in the first scheme of €125 million. As well as volumes per category in the member states with the highest volumes, the Commission is adding a reserve which will be open to producers from all member states.
Following the discussion between the experts, the Commission will finalise the text, confirming the estimated budget, and complete the necessary internal consultations before formally adopting this delegated regulation and publishing it in the Official Journal of the EU. This process will take a few days and so the publication of the text is expected early next week, with the new rules entering into force straight away. (LC)